Month: June 2018

Hello dear audience, I know I’ve been away for a very long time. I think my mental health took a little bit of a downturn. I just couldn’t face writing things down honestly and quite a lot has happened in the last… almost 2 weeks gosh.

But here I am sat in the park with the kiddos on a warm but overcast day and there is a breeze okay there is traffic but will ignore that and quite frankly I’m feeling a little bit at peace.

I also just got handed this treasure from TT and it made me smile

Well in the first case #1 Son’s birthday party happened on Saturday, the 6th of June which was almost 2 weeks ago.

We had had quite a few replies in the positive for the party but on the day of I still could not shake the feeling that he was effectively going to be stood up by his classmates. But I needn’t have worried there was so many kids there it was wonderful. TT had a whale of a time and honestly despite it costing $600 (it was all thanks to Merry Tax-mas that we could pay for it!) it was well worth it.

Yes that is Jestro and The Red Ninja from both Ninjago and Nexo Knights who guest-starred in the party room. #1 Son was ecstatic truly. TT was in the “okay I really want to play with them and I really want to hug them but I know they’re scary!” mode which was sort of hilarious 🤣😂

There was pizza and cake:

So. Much. Cake. And So. Much. Pizza. As part of the booking there were seven pizzas and lord alone knows how many cupcakes included.

All I know is, we brought 4 whole pizzas and 16 cupcakes home!!!

No we weren’t allowed to give some to the staff. We tried.

So H received two pizzas and a box of cupcakes when we returned home, as, sadly, the twins had been poorly and hadn’t been able to attend.

And the gifts. Dear lord. We have never exactly cheaped out when buying the gifts for those classmate birthday parties that he attended, but seeing the sheer generosity from the fellow parents I definitely feel more than a little bit guilty. Well, now we know more for next year.

And I didn’t have to do party bags either praise the good lord Jesus because there was a buildable mini figure for every child included in the party package. That included a Duplo figure for TT so even she was catered for which was lovely.

The next thing to happen really of note was spirit day on the Tuesday which would have made it the 9th of June. Each child had a shirt:

How to make a parent feel old in one easy step? Put the year that their child will graduate overall from high school on the back of the Kindergarten T-shirt. Yeah my son will graduate in 2030.

Welp always good to be prepared right?

So Spirit Day seemed very much an open event but I didn’t manage to get up there as TT wasn’t being cooperative. However class photos were shared 💗

My boy is, as always, clinging to an adult God love him.

He had an amazing time though, and even caught the sun a little.

Fret not dear audience he did not burn

There was also an entire school photo posted on the schools own Facebook page so I feel no compunction about half inching it and popping it up here.

Hint: my son is the one clinging to an adult on the left hand side the bottom.

And after spirit today came DPW day. This is a day to celebrate Melrose Department of Public Works. Which for the adult sounds about as exciting as it probably was except that the kids had such an amazing time.

She’s absolutely in love with that little hardhat and tries to take it with her everywhere. Unfortunately it’s really flimsy plastic so blows off with the slightest breeze so I keep trying to persuade her to keep it in the house.

Again school wanted us to go with him to chaperone but there was free ice cream and snacks there was sunshine and all manner of giant heavy duty vehicles for the kids to climb on and poke, so I consider it a morning well spent.

Sadly it was too far away from the house for me to go it alone with TT so daddy had to come to and drive but we’ll had a pretty good time.

And then, it was Friday. Having chatted with his teacher at DPW day, at length, it was decided that we shouldn’t take him in for the half day on Monday because he actually handled the fifth graders leaving not very well.* And she felt (and I didn’t disagree with her) that given they already finished the formal teaching part of the year it would just add stress to have a half day. Which meant that Friday was his last day of kindergarten. I didn’t really quite know how to feel if I’m honest he’s grown so so much and then I saw this picture:

There just aren’t words to describe the sheer pride I have felt in seeing these pictures. He’s grown, he’s changed and he’s done so so well. And then to top it off his report card came home on Friday as well. Now okay he has slipped a bit in certain areas, but overall? He has excelled compared to the winter report. I’m so so proud of him.

So this update is already super long so I think I’ll leave it there and will try and catch up with this week plus last weekend as soon as I can which hopefully will be tomorrow. Having said that, he’s got his first summer Reading camp tomorrow so we will see how we go.

*We have put so much effort into explaining to him about the transition to 1st grade, the change in class, the change in teacher etc, but we completely forgot that he had a lot of friends in the fifth grade who are moving up to the middle school in September. He was devastated on the Friday.

Actually this time it’s been more that I haven’t had time to sit down and write a full blog post, rather than nothing happening and same old same old.

The weather had been improving a little (it’s gone back to being shite 😞) so on Tuesday last week we all went outside to play for a bit. Actually, what happened is the lovely H rang me on my mobile and asked if we were all free at roughly 5:30 PM and we got invited to play outside; which was lovely. The kids had a whale of a time – all of them together 😊

You see, #1 Son and H’s twin grandsons are close in age (the twins are roughly a year older) but they haven’t really had a chance yet to spend much time together. The twins are sweet kids, and I love them to bits, however they are also autistic and on the more severe end of the spectrum.

And as my own son is, well let’s just say he takes after his mum in having the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the tact of a tank; and as such I was a little concerned about how he would react and be around them once he noticed that they were different to him.

Apparently I needn’t have worried. Honestly it was great. They bonded over ice pops – in that one of the twins decided to half inch my sons one because he had it and he didn’t. (You get points if you worked out who was who there!)

They drew with sidewalk chalks together, they blew bubbles together, they tormented TT together (actually she gave as good as she got 😂🤣) they hunted for insects together and played on the pre-existing outdoor play equipment together.

We really need to get our new swing-set wood stained and built ASAP, however it requires five days of good sunshine that also involves a weekend. And that has been tricky.

So I didn’t manage to corral all my children back into the house until way past TT’s bedtime. And as you can see from the videos it wasn’t as if I could just put them straight to bed either as soon as we got in!!! Yep a full bath was required.

Which is fine if you have children that like the bath and, more importantly, hair washing which my children don’t. And the bath? It was black afterward. I mean really, it was black with pine needles and leaves and sycamore seeds and all sorts of other fun stuff 😂🤣. That was okay though – was a mark of fun – especially as I suspect that this is going to be my future from now until approximately November 😂🤣

The only downside to this little excursion is that TT is currently obsessing over “ants”. Both over their existence, and the catching of them.

Then there was the previously documented birthday joy 😁

We decided that given my birthday was midweek, that we would wait to celebrate until the weekend.

H and I went to get our nails done before said celebrations! I went back to chrome:

💕💕💕💕

And I managed to persuade H to try one silver chrome nail on each hand! (Much to the delight of her nail tech lady who had been doing her nails for over twenty years but had never been able to persuade her to do this)

I am clearly magical and a wonderful influence 😂🤣

So on Saturday we went out for belated birthday shenanigans which included a wonderful meal at Fuji restaurant I do love Japanese and I didn’t have loads of sushi. Which is quite surprising for me.

A flight of proper sake and Japanese Whisky (that is the correct spelling – the sommelier told us so!) was also enjoyed:

Utterly gorgeous. If you like whisky/whiskey try Japanese – utterly stunning.

After this, we went to the cinema to see Deadpool 2. I laughed. I cried. I gasped. I sniffled.

GO. SEE. THIS. FILM.

I am still planning on seeing the next Jurassic Park movie on the Big Screen though. And we will be hiring the same sitter again.

My goodness she bought #1 son and myself a birthday gift, read him stories, and did some (unasked for) light housework. The woman is a gem, my son adores her so we are definitely using her again – and yes she got a tip and a bloody good review.

Then came Sunday. There was a baby shower for H’s eldest daughter – she’s having a little boy 💙💙💙💙

And I turned my sewing skills to use and saved the day by sewing in not one, not two, but three buttons on the top H wished to wear:

That has to level up my domestic goddess-ery somehow right?

So TT got all dressed up for “the par-tee”

Why yes, yes that is a party dress with snow boots. My kid is the epitome of fashion and style 😂🤣

There were a number of other children there. TT played so well with other toddlers, and #1 Son was polite and well behaved – according to H several members of her extended family and friends were singing my children’s praises 🙀🙀🙀

I’m not taking credit for that beyond being grateful!

So that has been our week.

I’ve gotten #1 Son signed up to a five-week Monday-Thursday Summer Learning Academy, which is free and four hours long where they focus on core skills at an age appropriate level. H told me about it as her grandsons take part (they are a grade above him) and he was able to snag a waiting list place. She will take him and pick him up and next summer it will swap to being at the school just around the corner from us!

He has a Field Trip tomorrow and the school asked for one of us to chaperone him, so daddy gets that honour.

And, to finish off, My son you know the only just six-year-old? Well tonight, when he came home from school, he asked if his friend GG who is the youngest daughter of the lovely lady who drops him off on a weekday, could stay for a sleepover.

I would like to remind the audience that this girl is 11. Yep that would be five years older than him!!!

I’m so going to have trouble with this kid when he’s a teenager aren’t I?